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Getting The Government We Deserve

We’ve traveled down the rabbit hole in the last 50 years, no doubt, and here we are in Wonderland, looking around in disbelief. The atmosphere is confusing, distorted, and premised on face value, rather than substance. Truth is subjective, facts are insignificant, right and wrong are as muddled as right and left. Things are not what they seem, but wherever one turns, there are collective voices telling us how wrong we are.

The big problem here is that though the world is not black and white, it’s also not psychedelic. The way something looks is often deceiving.

Image Vs. Reality

Many of us probably have a romantic and somewhat nostalgic vision of the "Birth" of our Nation. After all, they looked so polished and proper in their powdered wigs and tri-cornered hats. The Founders whiled away the hours at Independence Hall debating and battling wits daily. When the long day was through, off to City Tavern for large tankards of ale. Ah yes, those were the days.

The reality, however, is completely different. It was hot as Hell that summer in Philly. They didn't have toothbrushes, didn't bathe often, there were animals and manure in the streets, and the stench in Independence Hall was, in all likelihood, stifling. There's nothing romantic about Colonial America when you get down to it. I worked at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia as a Historical Interpreter— a Park Ranger who gives tours and talks about history. Though years ago, I can attest to the summer heat there.

The Founders are depicted as staid intellectuals, and they were. They were also scrappers, who fought ferociously over our nation's blueprint. They called each other terrible names, stabbed each other in the back, and did everything in their power to sabotage each other. Sounds just like Washington DC, eh? Very little has really changed all these years later. One difference between then and now is, they didn't have to battle a 24-hour news cycle and hordes of people educated just enough to be dangerous.

The Founders’ Ancestors

The biggest difference, however, was their history. Most founders were born in the 13 colonies:

48 of the 56 signers were born in America. Two were born in England (Button Gwinnett, Robert Morris), two in Ireland (George Taylor, Matthew Thornton), two in Scotland (James Wilson, John Witherspoon), one in Northern Ireland (James Smith), and one in Wales (Francis Lewis).

All of them had ancestors, however, who faced oppression or persecution in the lands they left, and those stories were passed down to male children (and some lucky daughters). The tales of how their ancestors lived influenced how the Founders envisioned the new government they were entrusted to create. This is the primary reason for the strong and unwavering focus on Liberty in the US, and why certain rights were protected first and foremost in our founding documents. The First Amendment proclaimed that the right to speech, religion, peaceful assembly, the press, and the ability to petition the government were sacred; not given by man, but by God. They went on to protect the First Amendment Rights with the 2nd Amendment, which provided for “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” and declared that right “must not be infringed.”

Today, these inviolate rights have been poked and prodded, turned inside out and upside-down, and stomped upon. Some are now calling our founding documents racist, which is preposterous, downright wrong, and only proves the ignorance of our masses on matters of historical and social relevance. There is no point to revealing the facts around these important events. The facts are widely available for those who seek to know the truth. Our Founders strode a sometimes tempestuous path in their efforts to establish a stable government.

Facts Be Damned

What we’re encountering is not the search for truth in history, but egregious bomb throwing; this bombastic theatre of the absurd is on a 24-hour loop. Voices of reason and temperance are not welcome, they’re shouted over, manipulated, and taken out of context. The task of compressing whole narratives to sound-bite size is prohibitive for Conservatives, and now we’re boiling it down further to what fits on a meme. The political climate is maddening, and many of us who are still trying to fight the good and necessary fight, feel that our words don’t just fall on deaf ears, but they disappear into the great roiling mess of political posturing without consideration.

The American people get the government they deserve. Sadly, we’ve brought our country to this point, this place of undignified and abhorrent behavior and speech. Academia, Hollywood, news media, professional sports, etc., have assumed to speak for the country, without a thought to the millions living in small towns and rural areas on the map, whose thinking differs considerably. We couldn’t be heard over the screeching, morally relativistic, virtue signaling culture of the Left.

The Tipping Point

It’s been building for years and reached a head last November. Something had to be done, and a line needed to be drawn. It was unfortunate for us that our choices were terrible on both sides, but we came out and stood against the great Leftist Cultural Dynamic infecting our society. Though I strongly disagree with President Trump over myriad issues, and I can’t imagine we’d ever be friends, I am certainly not ashamed of having voted for him over a charlatan. Looking presidential is overrated; in terms of policy, he’s been a pleasant surprise so far, and in addition, he’s given us Neil Gorsuch.

Trump was elected because of the Supreme Court vacancy, the Liberals constant and disparaging nastiness toward the Silent Majority, and because Mrs. Clinton was the worst presidential candidate of all time. He didn’t win so much as she lost, spectacularly. The President, in fact, may be exactly who is needed at this juncture, because he really doesn’t give a hoot what is said about him, or what hysterics the Liberals are in, and that’s a face value fact we can all take to the bank.

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